TASSO, TORQUATO. La Gerusalemme Liberata di Torquato Tasso con le figure di Giambatista Piazzetta alla Sacra Real Maestà di Maria Teresa d'Austria Regina d'Ungheria e di Boemia. Venice, Giambatista Albrizzi, 1745.

Maximum folio (445x315 mm), contemporary roan calf binding (with defects), six raised bands spine, gilt triple rules decoration at boards, ff. (14), 254, (1). Red and black title-page with copper-plate representing the town of Venice. Copper-plated ornamental heads and tail pieces, six of them in full-page size.

TWENTY FULL-PAGE COPPER PLATES BASED ON DRAWINGS BY GIAMBATTISTA PIAZZETTA, EACH STANDING AT THE BEGINNING OF A CANTO; ALLEGORICAL HALF-TITLE PAGE AND PORTRAIT OF YOUNG MARIA THERESA OF AUSTRIA.

FIRST EDITION, SECOND PRINTING of the work that is generally considered the most attractive product of Venetian XVIII century typography, with Piazzetta's splendid illustrations, copper-plated by Poliziani. Two printings of this edition are known (see Radaelli, 1989), with some typographic variations: the present is the second printing, identified by the portrait of young Maria Theresa.

The pictorial work of GIAMBATTISTA PIAZZETTA (1683-1754) marks a turning point from the Baroque to the Rococo style: during the last period of his life, the artist combined a dramatic painting with the drawings for books illustrations, among which those created for the Gerusalemme Liberata are perhaps the best ones.
Skilled engraver of pastoral scenes and religious subjects, Piazzetta founded a school of painting in 1750, that later became the Venetian Academy.

REFERENCES: MORAZZONI, Il libro figurato veneziano del Settecento, 256 and pp. 123-26: «non a torto è considerato il più bel libro veneziano [...]. G. B. ha assecondato i desideri dell'editore da par suo, superando in brio e felicità  d'invenzioni la già  bella edizione del Bousset, disegnando 70 composizioni e sfoggiandovi una piacevolezza che ci fa passare da meraviglia in meraviglia [...] è un'edizione che ben caratterizza un'epoca, e ben si merita tutta l'ammirazione che oggi ancora la circonda». Cohen-de Ricci, 978; Olschki, Choix, 18734; Raccolta Tassiana, 261; Radaeli, Alcune note al Tasso del Piazzetta, 1989; Sander, 1887; Gamba, 948.

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